Squadra Speciale Cobra 11

"Alarm fur Cobra 11" (Emergency for Cobra-11) is a popular German TV cop series that is running on the TV station RTL since 1996 with great success. It shows the cases of two highway patrol officers, played by Turkish actor Erdogan Atalay (probably because many young Turks are into high-speed BMW and Mercedes sedans) and his handsome buddy Rene Steinke, his third companion in this series.

These cops usually meet all the evil men somewhere on the German autobahns which leads to spectacular car chases with big crashes and explosions and people dying at least two or three times during each 45-minute episode. It's all very influenced by modern Hollywood action cinema or Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay and sometimes appears like a prime time TV version of "Speed", "Con Air", "Die Hard" and the "Lethal Weapon" series.

The best about this series are the two main actors, the often funny dialogues (often inspired by Mel Gibson and Danny Glover) and the usually thrilling and sometimes weird plots with plenty of references to well-known movie genres. There are ninja killers murdering innocent victims on highway bridges. There is a handicapped "Phantom of the Opera" living in an empty garage besides a lonely highway, running amok on the the autobahn with guns and bombs. There is a femme fatale, killing Ferrari drivers as she was a rape victim years before, and there is a gang of bank robbers sieging the cops in a lonely forest house just like John Wayne in "Rio Bravo".

At its best, "Cobra 11" is thrilling and sometimes even outstanding German TV action entertainment. At it's worst, it's just a repetition of the same flying BMW cars exploding somewhere on the highways. There are also too many goofs in it, with cars changing it's model and design within seconds or with unreal facts like times and distances.

But during this weekly action overkill, nobody really cares about a BMW 3 changing into a BMW 2 during a salto mortale, so sit back and relax with the autobahn cops meeting the most unusual horrors on the German highways to hell.

When "Cobra 11" came up on the TV screen, you already knew that you could expect some great action as well as plot holes wider than the Autobahn near Frankfurt.

Truly great stunts Hollywood would be proud of, sometimes very interesting ideas and funny plots, but in the end, each episode of the series follows the exactly same scheme: evil appears, first (mass) crash, our heroes appear on the scene, evil strikes again, heroes follow evil, grande finale (more crashs). By limiting the scene entirely on the streets and actors who are only the figures behind the wheels of the real stars, the stories are also limited quite narrow on repeating the same plots again and again. Nonetheless, "Cobra 11" is still very successful in Germany - probably the Germans are not tired of seeing the daily craziness on the streets in the real life.

BTW: if you are fond of in the meanwhile pretty rare cars of the 70s and 80s, it's strongly advised NOT to watch "Cobra 11" - your heart might break when you see cars like the Alfa Romeo GTV 6, Audi Coupè, even a Triumph Spitfire Mk I shredded in spectacular crashs.

Hey, it's pure escapism. Sure it's not real... but it's fun, and has better stunts than the average Hollywood action movie.

Then again, I'm probably prejudiced, because I live an hour's drive away from where the bulk is filmed, and It's a nice change to see my neck of the woods the location of exaggerated car stunts and full-auto shootouts instead of Los Angeles.

The makers are quite aware of the ridiculousness, given the amounts of in-jokes regarding Autobahn locations (most of them the standard rush-hour traffic jams you would know from such radio stations as the WDR2) that everyone here knows, though they do not look remotely like the real thing.

I'm from the German part of Italy, and I used to watch this show every week. I really like it. Of course, some parts are not real (ok, most of the show is not real) but the action scenes are really good. Also, don't forget that most movies are not real either, so don't pick on THIS show.

These two legendary series deserves a crossover event.

Plot example: Semir comes to Turkey for a holiday and finds himself in trouble. He met with Riza baba and his team then they'll have to chase to criminals back to Germany for some reason. Action rolls out and at the end of 3 episode of collab they end a global crime organization.

Make it happen.